The Age of Innocence: Chapters 14-24

I hope you are enjoying the story so far....

***The conclusion of our group read discussion of The Age of Innocence is here.***
Please share your thoughts -- both positive and negative -- about the book.

Hello Wharton Readers... I've read through Chapter 18 and am falling in love with this book all over again. Don’t you just love how different kinds of flowers form an integral part of the story? I usually don’t catch symbolism in books unless, as in this case, it is a reccurring event. Here is what I found on “The Big Read” website:

http://www.neabigread.org/books/ageofinnocence/readers02.php

Flowers are important symbols in Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. Many Victorian families had a book on the "language of flowers" in their home, or even a flower dictionary. Giving flowers was not only a way to express wealth, but also a way to communicate a subtle message.

Every morning during his engagement, Newland Archer sends lilies-of-the-valley to May Welland. Lilies-of-the-valley symbolize purity, modesty, and return of happiness. Newland believes May to be as naïve and innocent as these white flowers suggest.
After Newland's first visit to Ellen Olenska's home, he sends her a bouquet of yellow roses. The message of a yellow rose is more complicated. Yellow roses can represent jealousy, infidelity, friendship, or a decrease of love.

This quote comes from Chapter 9 (Page 79 in my edition)…"His eye lit on a cluster of yellow roses. He had never seen any as sun-golden before, and his first impulse was to send them to May instead of the lilies. But they did not look like her—there was something too rich, too strong, in their fiery beauty."

After reading this, there was no doubt in my mind about Newland’s strong attraction to Ellen. At the end of Chapter 13, Ellen acknowledges that she knows the yellow roses came from Newland even without an attached card. There is a hint of foreshadowing early in Chapter 14 when Newland scours New York and can’t find any yellow roses to send to Ellen. Uh oh!

And then we have the red roses in Chapters 17 and 18. Big bucks were spent to send the message that the Count wants Ellen back. I loved her “answer” to him -- Get these roses out of my house -- ASAP!! Well, those are my words, but her actions of quickly sending the roses with Nastasia down the street to Mrs. Winsett were pretty emphatic.

I'm taking a short break to read another book by EW for my course. Summer is quite different from The Age of Innocence so I probably won't get them confused. I think Edith Wharton is going on my Favorite Authors list!

The whole tribe is involved in the importance of symbols.

May's innocence is so heartwarming to Newland at first, the idea that she parrots back his feelings about the books he has instructed her to read. How wonderful to have a person all your own to mold as you wish. May responds to him in the perfectly trusting, willing way she has been raised to do. Then he meets Ellen, a woman with a past. He is so disdainful of her at first, but then the idea of a woman with her own feelings and ideas captivates him. In a way I found that refreshing, but how much of it is just that a man wants something different? Had he been married to Ellen, would he then have been captivated again at May's innocence and pliability?

I just finished Chapter 24 and I must admit I'm disappointed in Newland. I think Joyce stated it very well in Msg. 3. He goes into marriage with May knowing what he is getting. This chasing after Ellen is not productive. Is it simply a case of boredom and knowing that Ellen is beyond his reach? I haven't seen much to convince me that he and Ellen are true soulmates. If that were the case, then he shouldn't have gone through with the marriage to May.

Edith Wharton has created another ineffectual male character. I'm glad, though, that she gave him a sense of humor. When his MIL asked him how he was going to spend his afternoon, "he answered paradoxically: 'Oh, I think for a change I'll just save it instead of spending it'--" and then he went on to lay under a rock on the beach below the house! I can also forgive him for quite a bit because he is a real reader. ;-)

Edith Wharton wrote this book after divorcing the husband she thought she should have and also after the affair with the man that she thought was her soulmate. It seems that she believes in true love while at the same time believing that it is unattainable for some people.

I thought that Newland had put "the Countess" into an impossible situation. And then he put himself into an impossible situation. I thought for a while that he would not end up marrying May. But then, I guess, the book would have ended too soon. :)

Thanks for the info on the flowers. I had wondered about it.

#2 Thanks for the flowers info Donna.

I found Newland seemed to change his mind quite suddenly regarding Ellen in this section. In Ch 21 he doesn't go to speak to Ellen, who is standing with her back to him on the pier. In Ch 22 he decides to go to the house where he thinks Ellen might be staying but he deliberately goes at a time when he thinks she won't be there.

"He was not sure that he wanted to see the Countess Olenska again; but ever since he had looked at her from the path above the bay he had wanted, irrationally and indescribably, to see the place she was living in, and to follow the movements of her imagined figure as he had watched the real one in the summer-house."

Then, once he's gone to the Blenkers' house he suddenly decides to drive into Boston to see her. I suppose the changes make sense given his strong feelings for her but I'm finding Newland a bit confusing and frustrating at the moment.

Regarding his conversation with Ellen in Ch 24, I'm also a bit confused. What has the Count done that makes it so dreadful for Ellen to go back to him and what did his letter to Ellen contain? From earlier references, I'd assumed the Count had had affairs and his letter to Ellen insinuated that the Count thought she had had an affair with his secretary (the one she ran away with). Is that enough to explain Newland's strong reaction? Does he not want her to go back to the Count because she was so unhappy with the Count? Does Newland not want Ellen to go back to the Count because if Newland can't have Ellen then he doesn't want anyone to have her?

I found this analysis from Sparknotes interesting:

"Wharton also demonstrates her gift for irony by the way she constructs the narrative at the end of Book One. The Age of Innocence begins in the style of a novel of manners, in which a young unmarried protagonist must encounter all the tribulations involved with falling in love and getting married. The novel of manners usually ends with the happy marriage and settling down of the protagonist. By placing this marriage in the middle of the novel instead of the end, and by describing such a marriage as imprisoning, Wharton radically alters the plot structure of the novel of manners and gives the idea of a happily-ever-after ending a sense of bitter irony."

I'd been musing over the similarities between Wharton and my favourite novel of manners author, Jane Austen, before reading this but it helped me see the similarities and differences more clearly. All Jane Austen's novels end with a marriage (presumed happy) but I haven't read a Wharton novel with a happy marriage in. Am I wrong in seeing links between Jane Austen's unmarried state (which lets you idealise marriage a bit) and Wharton's unhappily married/divorced one?

And some more questions:

Is Edith Wharton 'Ellen' in this book? Is Edith Wharton writing Ellen as she would like to have behaved, i.e. refusing (as of Ch 24) to enter into a relationship with her kindred spirit?

Jane Austen was a single woman writing novels early in 19th century England; Edith Wharton was a married/divorced woman of the early 20th century looking back at late 19th century America. Those are some big differences, and the comparison is a bit apples/oranges to me - the "manners" being described (and satirised) are divided by both time and place.

I've been hesitating to contribute to this thread, since I barely paused at Chapter 24 and went straight on through to the end. But I think I can avoid jumping ahead.

I find Newland's behavior confusing too. Maybe he does as well?

One think I think is interesting, and very different from Jane Austen, is that this novel is really told from the point of view of Newland Archer--a man. Ellen and May are important characters but we don't really see anything through their eyes.

I don't know that there is an awful lot more information about the Count than what you've already mentioned, souloftherose. He's described as "an awful brute" and a "blackguard Polish nobleman" with a taste for other women, including ones he pays. Ellen describes the life she escaped as hell, though I don't think she ever really elaborates--at the same time she had access to money, art, culture, and beautiful things--clearly not enough, in her mind, to offset whatever was wrong.

I can't help thinking about The Portrait of a Lady, which I read earlier this year--maybe some others were part of that group read too--and picturing the Count as another version of Gilbert Osmond. Ellen left--at great personal cost--because she was unhappy enough to leave, and, in an unusual move in everyone's opinion, standing up for herself. (And to me Ellen represents the path I wished for Isabel in Portrait). I like to think that Newland admires her independence and integrity, and doesn't want her to compromise herself. But maybe he's just a jealous guy.

Initially, Newland argues that Ellen should be free to seek a divorce if she wants to, then decides, apparently because of the honor of the family, that divorce would be scandalous and unnecessary, and talks her out of it. Then, at the end of Book I when he confesses his feelings, she points out that she would have been free to marry him if only he had not counseled her against divorce--and that his opinion was the only thing that mattered to her in that decision. This whole line of argument seems to really surprise him, and I'm not sure I understand why. It seems like he believed there was truly a scandal that would harm Ellen, whereas she claims she had nothing to fear from her husband's threats and abandoned the divorce only because he convinced her that it would harm him and May. (and I thought at the time, that he was primarily concerned about the impact on him and his immediate family)

He says, "But you are the woman I would have married if it had been possible for either of us." And she says, how can you say that when it's you who've made it impossible?

Maybe Newland just means that it's impossible--not in a practical way, just unthinkable. He's engaged, could never marry a divorced woman anyway, there was never any hope, it's not just a question of getting a divorce and breaking an engagement, but something more permanent. Maybe he's just not really serious. But then he says, on the next page, "nothing's done that can't be undone. I'm still free, and you're going to be."

He's a confusing man, that Newland Archer.

>6 souloftherose:: I'm finding Newland a bit confusing and frustrating at the moment.

I'm confused and frustrated along with you, Heather. You also raise another interesting question about whether EW sees herself as Ellen in this book. I actually see more of her in May because Edith was married at a young (i.e., innocent) age to a "sophisticated" man with the approval of her "tribe" (I like Joyce's word in msg. 3). She held up her end of the bargain, even giving up her beloved writing for almost a decade, trying to fulfill the expectations of society. Teddy (her husband) is the one who floundered. He had multiple affairs and used poor judgment with his wife's money. She coped by turning back to her writing and cultivating the intellectual friendships she craved before finally divorcing him after 28 years of marriage.

I agree with Liz about the apples and oranges analogy, although I think Edith was definitely influenced by the writing of Jane Austen and George Eliot. Anne, I'm glad you pointed out the possible similarity between the Count and Gilbert Osmond.

I can sort of understand the confusion in Newland Archer. He was ahead of his time in thinking that women should have more rights than they did in the late 1800s yet he was bound by the customs that were so deeply entrenched in the society that surrounded him. It's too bad that his internal conflict put Ellen in an impossible situation as BJ pointed out in msg. 5.

The thing that gets a bit lost about Wharton's writing is that she was looking back at the society she was describing - she had the perspective of hindsight and experience. In that she was closer to Eliot than Austen, though she was certainly broadly influenced by Austen.

Thank you for all the replies :-)

#8 I think you're right Liz. Something about Wharton's writing was making me think of Jane Austen and I've been trying to figure out why. I still have a tendancy to lump the whole of the 19th century together in my head as being the same time I think!

#9 "One think I think is interesting, and very different from Jane Austen, is that this novel is really told from the point of view of Newland Archer--a man. Ellen and May are important characters but we don't really see anything through their eyes." - That's a very interesting point Anne.

I didn't read The Portrait of a Lady earlier this year but it's another classic that has gone on my list (and LT is also recommending it to me because of The Age of Innocence).

Re Ellen's divorce, I think you're right and initially Newland had assumed that she had had an affair with the secretary and although he seems to think that this is explainable by the situation she was in, he still fears the scandal that would emerge during divorce proceedings from that fact. I'm assuming from his reaction that there wouldn't have been much scandal if she hadn't had had an affair? Perhaps if he'd known he would have advised her differently, but of course he was far too polite to ask her outright...

#10 I hadn't thought about the possibly similarities between May and Edith Wharton, thanks Donna.

#11 Another good point Liz :-)

Doesn't Newland or another lawyer say at some point that no matter what happens in the marriage, if there's a hint of infidelity on the part of the woman she could not overcome the shame? Ellen wouldn't feel the shame, but Newland could never distance himself enough from his tribe to accept such a taboo. I see such a similarity between him and Ethan Frome. How does Wharton manage to make such likable weak men? I can see men quaking in their boots entering a room where she presides.

By the way I loved this passage from this section:

The young man, as he followed his wife into the hall, was conscious of a certain reversal of mood. There was something about the luxury of the Welland house and the density of the Welland atmosphere, so charged with minute observances and exactions, that always stole into his system like a narcotic. The heavy carpets, the watchful servants, the perpetually reminding tick of disciplined clocks, the perpetually renewed stack of cards and invitations on the hall table, the whole chain of tyrannical trifles binding one hour to the next, and each member of the household to all the others, made any less systematized and affluent existence seem unreal and precarious. But now it was the Welland house, and the life he was expected to lead in it, that had become unreal and irrelevant, and the brief scene on the shore, when he had stood irresolute, halfway down the bank, was as close to him as the blood in his vein.

Initially I loved this paragraph for its depiction of the Welland house and life, but on rereading it I think it also highlights the underlying conflict within Newland.

Very interesting discussion! Welland is, indeed, a complicated character. I want to dislike him because, as someone already noted, he married May knowing exactly what he was getting; and then betrayed her in his pursuit of Ellen. But I can't dislike him. I think he wishes for May the freedom that he sees in Ellen. Society being what it is, and May's experience being what it is, May is completely unable to understand his altered thoughts on their "rich and idle and ornamental" society. This quote from Ch 20 resonated:

"Archer had reverted to all his old inherited ideas about marriage. It was less trouble to conform with the tradition and treat May exactly as all his friends treated their wives than to try to put into practice the theories with which his untrammelled bachelorhood had dallied. There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free; and he had long since discovered that May’s only use of the liberty she supposed herself to possess would be to lay it on the altar of her wifely adoration."

Wharton could put it in a nutshell, couldn't she? Don't you see the same ideas among some people today?